A call to redirect the intellectual focus of information retrieval and
science (IR&S) toward the phenomenon of technology-mediated
experience.
In this book, Sachi Arafat and Elham Ashoori issue a call to reorient
the intellectual focus of information retrieval and science (IR&S) away
from search and related processes toward the more general phenomenon of
technology-mediated experience. Technology-mediated experience accounts
for an increasing proportion of human lived experience; the phenomenon
of mediation gets at the heart of the human-machine relationship.
Framing IR&S more broadly in this way generalizes its problems and
perspectives, dovetailing them with those shared across disciplines
dealing with socio-technical phenomena. This reorientation of IR&S
requires imagining it as a new kind of science: a science of
technology-mediated experience (STME). Arafat and Ashoori not only offer
detailed analysis of the foundational concepts underlying IR&S and other
technical disciplines but also boldly call for a radical, systematic
appropriation of the sciences and humanities to create a better
understanding of the human-technology relationship.
Arafat and Ashoori discuss the notion of progress in IR&S and consider
ideas of progress from the history and philosophy of science. They argue
that progress in IR&S requires explicit linking between technical and
nontechnical aspects of discourse. They develop a network of basic
questions and present a discursive framework for addressing these
questions. With this book, Arafat and Ashoori provide both a manifesto
for the reimagining of their field and the foundations on which a
reframed IR&S would rest.
